Examining the Thesis of Central Business District Decline: Evidence from the Montreal Metropolitan Area

W J Coffey, M Polèse and R Drolet
Additional contact information
W J Coffey: Département d'études urbaines, Université du Québec à Montréal, CP 8888, Suc. A, Montréal, Québec H3C 3P8, Canada

Environment and Planning A, 1996, vol. 28, issue 10, 1795-1814

Abstract: Much recent North American research has focused on the decline of the central business district (CBD) as the economic core of metropolitan areas, and the corresponding rise of suburban employment centres. According to the literature, this trend is particularly evident in the case of high-order service functions: business services, finance, insurance, and real estate services, and head offices. In this paper, we argue that the decentralization of high-order service activities and the corresponding CBD decline may be neither as strong a trend nor as universal a phenomenon as certain authors have indicated. Rather, the growth of suburban office employment may reflect a strong CBD whose economic base is becoming increasingly specialized. Using data from the Montreal metropolitan area, we first examine intrametropolitan decentralization in a shift-share framework, then document the mobility of establishments and employment. Our findings suggest that, in spite of a certain level of intrametropolitan decentralization, the CBD continues to be the primary locus of high-order services.

Date: 1996
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a281795 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:28:y:1996:i:10:p:1795-1814

DOI: 10.1068/a281795

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().